From left to Right, Tom Saunders, Warren
Kress, Ray Taylor and Jim Griffin talk about music in the A3Radio.com Web radio
station in downtownAnn Arbor. Saunders, Kress and Griffin are the founders of A3
Radio, an internet station that offers music, news and opinion online 24 hours a
day.

BY AMY
WHITESALL

News
Staff Reporter

A3
Radio is not only off the map, it's off the dial. But the Ann Arbor-based Web
radio station, found on the Internet at www.a3radio.com, is nonetheless worth a
visit.

A3 Radio and its
corresponding nonprofit, Ann Arbor Alive, stir the creative pot that is Ann
Arbor. A3 Radio has been broadcasting a cornucopia of music channels that
includes one called "Cornucopia" (described on the site as
"Everything in any order.") The station doesn't make enough money yet
to issue paychecks, but it takes advantage of technology that Griffin says is
quickly changing the way people listen to the radio.

The
ever-growing music library of 10,000-12,000 songs is diverse enough to support
separate channels for classical, electronica, jazz, rock, swing, blues, punk and
gospel, among others, but none is closer to the heart of the project than the
1,500-song collection of music by local artists.

Griffin, Kress and Saunders
were sick of hearing all the same songs and artists on the radio, and they
wanted a place for the progressive political voice that's not heard on a
national stage. On a given day you might hear a track from "Freak
Show," a rock opera that earned its creator, Daniel Worley, a PhD from the
University of Michigan, followed by George Bedard and the Kingpins'
"William Tell '97" on the heels of an advertisement featuring a rap
about the virtues of the People's Food Co-op. The News and Views channel
recently ran a George Carlin rant that would never be allowed on mainstream or
conventional radio, and activist and former Ann Arborite John Sinclair does a
show four times a week live from various cannabis coffeehouses in Amsterdam.

A3 Radio resides in the old
WPAG studios, which Griffin proudly points out have been a source of radio and
music for 60 years. There's a rooted, nostalgic feeling about the station and
its Web counterpart, AnnArborAlive.com, that's very intentional.

"Our goal is to promote
what people in Ann Arbor want to do and give them a place to do it," said
Griffin.

They created Ann Arbor Alive
to promote local artists and - by giving them a venue - to encourage more
creativity. The door is open to aspiring radio personalities and anyone else who
wants to get involved.

"One of the big things
to spring out of the nonprofit was using the Internet and primarily the Web to
help create community at another level," Griffin said. "Not only does
it create community, it brings people together but it gives them a direction or
a goal. If we give them a place to put their stuff, it's actually
self-motivating."

Amy Whitesall can be reached
at (734) 994-6842 or awhitesall@annarbornews.com.